Monday, September 22, 2008

A story on BBC News this morning, about shooting commencing on a new Hammer Film, led me (via Dread Central) to this story by Ali Jaafar in Variety a couple of months ago about the revival of UK horror.

One reason for the current glut lies in the success of Danny Boyle's 2002 "28 Days Later." Pic's critical and commercial success marked a paradigm shift for Brit financiers in terms of backing genre projects.

"With '28 Days Later,' you had a respected, nonhorror director in Danny directing a horror film, and the British establishment took note," says Neil Marshall, whose "The Descent" is also cited by U.K. film execs as a successful example of the new wave of Brit horror. "It took me six years to get financing for 'Dog Soldiers,' and the money ended up coming from the U.S. After '28 Days,' though, people here saw horror films as lucrative and respectable. 'The Descent' ended up being financed 100% with British money, which is quite unusual."...

"We're a society in change right now," says Film4 senior commissioning exec Peter Carlton, who has invested in a number of the emerging Brit horror projects as well as other dark fare including Rufus Sewell starrer "Vinyan" and helmer Jonathan Glazer's "Under the Skin."

"When you have much bigger forces in the world, such as terrorism and climate change, that threatening to blow society apart, naturalistic dramas sometimes feel insufficient to deal with that feeling of going out of control. Horror films can tap into that sense of unease."

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